


Causality

by OrchidaceaeOrchidoideae



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dark Original Timeline, Good Parent Allison Hargreeves, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Parent-Child Relationship, Platonic Relationships, Protective Siblings, Swearing, bittersweet but happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29625132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrchidaceaeOrchidoideae/pseuds/OrchidaceaeOrchidoideae
Summary: “This wasn’t the plan, Allison.”“My plan was better.” Five knows that she is referring to another plan as well.“I know you miss Claire, but Vanya should be with her family. She belongs with them. With us.”
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Allison Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 10
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

She finds him sitting coolly on the couch. His expression is grim and determined, like a man certain of all the answers, but she thinks if he were a cat, she would see his tail twitching in agitation.

“This wasn’t the plan, Allison.”

“My plan was better.” Five knows that she is referring to another plan as well.

“I know you miss Claire, but Vanya should be with her family. She belongs with them. With _us_.”

“Fuck lot of good that did her last time.”

“I see my swearing habits have rubbed off on you.”

“I followed most of your cryptic instructions,” she reminds him. “I’ve been waiting almost three years for you to show up, Five. Three years.”

“I was trying to protect you,” he says defensively, frustration leaking into his voice.

“And I’m protecting her. She’s not going back.”

He frowns at his unwavering sister as he rapidly weighs angles of attack. His tail would be swishing about, beating against the cushion. “You realize you’re depriving her of a relationship with her sister, _Allison_. Her Allison.”

“Does it matter? Does it really matter that she can cling to the handful of times we invited her out to Griddy’s if she never lives past thirty? Dad isolated her from us anyway, painfully so. And in whatever relationships we did have with her, we treated her like shit.”

“Not me. I was her best friend, remember? I’ve always cared about her.”

“Not enough,” she fires back.

Five flinches, but she does not care. He used Claire so casually and so cruelly against her in their argument. That pain sits in her chest, and she is self-aware enough to admit that she wants to hurt him just a little in return.

“Actually, you know what, you’re right,” Allison begins lightly. “Not you. All of us, but not you, her only friend. She loved you for it. Trusted you implicitly. And then you disappeared in a fit of arrogant indignation, leaving her to a year of compulsively sacrificing fluffernutter sandwiches and a lifetime of wondering why she wasn’t enough.” She adds caustically, “The final day really epitomized the significance of that affectionate, trustful friendship, don’t you think? I could really sense the depth of your bond when you were hellbent on killing her.

“So you want me to put her back in that place? So that you can have your exceptional friendship for a few years and then she can be left with only the pain of your loss to show for it?”

In the resounding silence, Allison can almost hear jaw bone fracture under clenched muscles. Five’s eyes are blazing their own light in the dim room, but he is so still. Allison has never seen a person so still.

The rage slowly dissipates, leaving only fatigue and bitterness over their collective failures. The thing about the Hargreeves siblings is they have always been so good at hurting each other.

When Five finally speaks, his voice is low and tightly controlled, each word enunciated. “This is not about what I want.”

“No, it’s about stopping the Apocalypse,” she responds quickly, before he can say more, trying but failing to filter the derision from her voice. “And this time, we’re doing it my way.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Allison,” he warns. “I take it that the others, including our younger selves, are still with Reginald. What a shitload of causal paradoxes.”

“I don’t care.”

“Clearly.” Five opens his mouth to speak again, but he freezes when a small mass darts across the room.

Not liking the way this stranger is talking to her mother, the small girl climbs into Allison’s lap and clings to her protectively. The room starts to quiver as she stares at Five, almost like a baby tiger trying to appear threatening, except this cub could in fact level a building.

“It’s okay, baby,” Allison soothes immediately. “He’s a friend.”

Vanya whimpers as she glances up at her mother, who nods reassuringly and rubs her back. Five swallows.

“He won’t hurt us.” The light shaking eases to a stop, though Vanya continues to watch Five warily. In the shadows of the room, Allison can see his furrowed brow.

“Hi Vanya,” he manages. “I’m your… uncle.”

When the woman confirms his words with another nod, Vanya tucks her face shyly against her mother’s chest and peers at him with wide, curious eyes.

“Do you want to say hi back?” The tiny oatmeal monster burrows her podgy face into Allison’s neck. “Okay, that’s okay. Go back to bed. I’ll come soon.” At Allison’s gentle urging, Vanya cautiously lowers her bare feet to the floor. Then, after one slow step, she scampers away.

“I’m sorry," Allison offers quietly. "She’s wary of strangers, especially men in suits. Give her a little time."

“That’s understandable.”

“The others… I rumored Dad to be kinder. I have no idea how effective it was.”

“Anything helps.”

“I should go check on her. There’s a second bedroom, if you want to follow me.”

While walking through the hallway, Five catches a glimpse of Vanya sitting cross-legged on the bed. Too stubborn to lie down, she is sleepily hugging a pillow to her chest, her chin buried in its soft form.

Allison tells Vanya that Uncle Five has just returned from a very long journey. She explains that sometimes even people who love each other very much have big fights and raise their voices, and that’s okay. They still love each other afterwards. The most important thing is that they use words to express their feelings.

After Vanya goes to sleep, Allison takes a fresh set of towels to Five’s room. When she finds him sitting on the edge of the bed with his head pressed in his hands and his elbows on his knees, she thinks sometimes there are no words.

He can find only three, “She’s so small.”

Allison can guess a few of the images flashing through Five’s mind. Vanya had been the first one they watched die, warmth draining from her as chunks of the Moon careened toward the Earth. Then began their convoluted game of cat and mouse with the Commission until Five and Allison were the only ones left.

Sometimes there are no words, so she covers his hunched back with her arms and draws his gangly young adult frame close.


	2. Chapter 2

Allison hands him a mug of coffee large enough to drown a rat. A peace offering, he assumes, following her sharp refusal moments ago to give him the specific date and time she abducted Vanya. For some calculations, he assured her. He wouldn’t take any course of action without her knowledge.

He would.

Given that less than a hundred miles away, another Three and Five, barely four years old, are in their morning calisthenics class, he should be grateful the timeline has not simply imploded.

The other, younger Allison would now lack many of the experiences that led the older Allison to kidnap Vanya and effect those changes in the first place.

The implications for continuity and causation are staggering. The fabric of time may already be unraveling, snipping its own threads one by one in an effort to locate and purge itself of these weighty paradoxes.

Of course, there are other possibilities. He needs to check the math, and to check the math, he needs caffeine. Preferably not from this vanilla flavored abomination that Allison has served him, but in the absence of an alternative, he continues sipping the alleged coffee.

“So, about the Commission or time or whatever you’ve been working on these past three years,” Allison opens, her under-caffeinated mom-brain causing her words to meander as she places some bowls on the small circular dining table. “Did you learn anything useful?”

Perhaps the coffee is a bribe, not a peace offering.

“Four months.” At her confused look, he clarifies, “Three years for you, four months for me. I had trouble fine-tuning the jump back to you.” He mumbles the last part even though his struggle with precision is old news to Allison.

“I’m catching up in age to you then.”

He snorts. “You’ve still got a long way to go.”

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, dropping Allison in a decade she’d have some familiarity with. Hiding her in plain sight, in a period the Commission would not think to search for a second Allison. Turns out she was a little too comfortable.

He wishes he had left her in 1980 instead.

Despite the passing of three years, Allison diligently placed coded ads in the newspaper every month per his instructions, allowing him to locate her. He really should be more grateful. She never gave up on him. That explanation is more comforting than the alternative, that she adhered to the ritual out of desperate hope, sprung from the terror that he might never return. He takes a reckless gulp of coffee, the liquid scalding his throat, and tastes fluffernutter sandwiches.

Allison is studying him carefully, no doubt planning to pick up her initial line of questioning. Vanya’s arrival at the dining table liberates him from the interrogation.

After Allison retreats into the kitchen, Five feels his companion’s scrutinizing eyes on him. When he looks at the small creature, she snaps her focus shyly to the silverware in front of her, stuffed animal clutched in the crook of her arm. He returns his gaze nonchalantly to the window. They repeat this nonverbal sequence a few times. Soon, the corners of her lips are turning upwards. She is enjoying their little game.

The fourth iteration begins much like the first. However, before he turns his attention back to the window, she lifts her eyes to hold his gaze, and he glimpses that duality that every Vanya seems to possess. A duality which, in another life, had fascinated him. A fascination which, in another life, had sparked their friendship.

Timid, accommodating, empathetic to a fault.

Steadfast, unyielding, fierce.

His slight smile broadens. Slightly. “Hello.”

“Hello.”

“Who’s your friend?” He nods toward the stuffed toy.

“Mr. Hedgehog.”

“Imaginative.” He surveys the veritable minefield of stuffed animals in the adjacent living space. The sofa in particular is littered with lethal explosives, which, he presumes, are named Mr. Lion, Mr. Pig, Mr. Platypus, and Mr. Turtle.

A pout descends on Vanya’s face when she sees what Allison is bringing to the table for breakfast.

“It’s slimy,” she whines as Allison fills her bowl.

“I know you don’t like it, Vanya-”

“No, no, no, I don’t like it.” She emphasizes the sentiment with a vehement shake of her head.

“I understand, sweetie, but it’s all we have right now. Later today, I promise you can help me pick out breakfast stuff at the grocery store, but for now, please eat it for me, okay?”

Vanya sighs dramatically, but she avails herself of the cinnamon and sugar that Allison has placed on the table to make the offending substance more palatable.

“Thank you, sweetie,” Allison coos.

Vanya mutters a half-hearted acknowledgment. Wrinkling her nose, she pours a generous splash of milk into her oatmeal and stirs it in.

With the first bite, the child stares despondently at Allison so that the woman has no doubt just how much Vanya is sacrificing for her sake.

Five grins at Vanya’s antics from behind his cup of coffee, until Allison ladles some slop into his bowl and tells the child encouragingly, “Your uncle is going to finish his oatmeal too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will do my very best to update this story every week or so.  
> Thanks for reading!


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